The first two years in Anchorage we lived in the 8 x 36
foot trailer house. The first six months we had no running water or
electricity, when
we finally got electricity it was sure nice because we could
only
run the
power plant a
couple of hours a day. To
get running water
took a little longer we went until
1962
without any running water, we would take the passenger seat out of
our VW bug and put this large plastic garbage can in the front and
drive about 6
miles to a
Chevron service station which had an outside water faucet and there
we would fill the garbage can up and take it back home where we keep it
in the living room next to a Kitchen counter that divided
the kitchen and
living room,
That was our water supply for four
years. I remember it being so cold in the trailer during the winter
that there would be a quarter
inch of ice
on the top of the water in that garbage can and it was only about
six feet from the oil heater which heated the whole
trailer.

The first
well in 1962
was a hand dug hole about 12 feet deep in the corner of the basement
we were starting to build. The idea was that with the well inside
the basement it would not freeze up in the winter. Well the well only
had water in it in the summer so freezing up in the winter was no big
deal. We went on using the hand dug well even after we got the
basement built in 1963. In 1964 dad even dug it a little deeper
trying to get water year round but it still wasn't to good a water
system. It was probably a good thing we didn't have water in the
winter it would have been frozen up all the time.....

Our real
drilled well wasn't until 1965 when we built the upstairs onto our
basement. Mom told dad if he didn't get a well drilled she would move
to town, so we got a real well in 1965 what a difference having that
well, water even in the winter what a great thing, indoor pluming and
running water and with the new furnace he water only froze up a few
times during the winter and all this modern technology only took us
about seven years.